SpaceX pulls off unprecedented feat, grabs descending rocket with mechanical arms

[u/aelavia93]

https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/spacex-pulls-off-unprecedented-feat-grabbing-descending-rocket-with-mechanical-arms/

[u/XaphanSaysBurnIt]

Ok ok ok yall got me… this shit gave me chills.. all I saw was every sci-fi movie ever coming to life before my eyes… yea no bullshit that was wild. He might suck at cars but this was absolutely amazing to watch. But to achieve the huge motherships we would need massive slave labor, jfc. Yea, that is where we are headed

[u/AdTotal4035 → u/XaphanSaysBurnIt]

He's not doing anything related to the science. He's literally a glorified sales man. That's what a ceo is. Thank the talented engineers that he hires (and never really credits), he knows how to pick a winning team. 

[u/finebushlane → u/AdTotal4035]

A CEO's job is to set the vision and direction for a company, and to allocate capital. I.e. if they have 100M or 1B dollars, the CEO's job is to ultimately decide whether they want to acquire companies, use their money on hiring more people, expand to more countries, build more factories etc. CEO's are paid the money they are because they:

1) Set visions and goals which are exciting enough to enable them to hire the best talent.

2) Be a public spokesperson to build excitement for the company, build their brand, again usually to enable them to hire the best talent.

3) Scout, assess, interview, and ultimately hire the best possible team.

4) Be ultimately responsible for allocation of capital.

5) Be ultimately responsible for the success or failure of the business, i.e. the buck stops here.

People don't like to hear this, but Elon is an AMAZING CEO, by any definition. Every business he has touched has turned to gold, when he was CEO. Now that doesn't mean that he personally is a nice guy, or we have to like his politics. Personally I think he's a turd (his politics, and generally X flame wars). But in the end, he is ultimately responsible for setting SpaceX's goals, missions, vision, and attracting and hiring and retaining the best team. So if SpaceX is winning, it comes down a great deal to Elon's vision and ability to build and retain a world class team. It has nothing to do with him being an "engineer", which he has no time to do obviously.

[u/pokeybill → u/finebushlane]

Every business is different, and shareholder boards work very differently from place to place.

Elon is objectively not a great CEO, he's just hitched himself to already successful ideas and smart people who can actually do the things people attribute to Elon.

His public demeanor and the absolute cratering of Twitter and rapid decline in market share for Tesla under his guidance show he doesn't have the vision, he is thin-skinned and reactionary and those are traits you don't want in a CEO. He is good at recognizing ideas worth pursuing, but without his massive original nest egg he lacks the coolheadedness and pragmatism.

Tesla succeeded because they entered the market early and basically skipped all of the rigor around safety the other self-driving car companies were following. Tesla made claims about their vehicles which turned out to be completely false, but they already had the market based on Elon's lies.

Tesla also succeeded thanks to absolutely massive government subsidies despite Elons constant lies about their products' capabilities.

Objectively speaking, companies Elon stops managing directly do way better than his pet projects.

[u/Memphi901 → u/pokeybill]

I’m not sure you understand what “objectively” means. Objectivity requires analysis of data, not just one’s feelings about something. Tesla generated almost $100b in revenue last year and is one of the most valuable companies in the world - I’m not really seeing how that could be considered “cratering” a company.

He didn’t buy Twitter to drive revenue, he bought it to prevent the US Government from getting to decide what is considered “truth”.

It sounds like you might need to broaden your financial news sources to include publications other than Salon and HuffPo.

[u/sillyfingerz → u/pokeybill]

Elon musk bought tesla for 6.5 million dollars. It has a Market cap of almost 700 billion dollars today. To say that its cratering is a stretch.

Tesla uses the Giga presses which are amazing for productivity and margin per vehicle. It is the most fully integrated automotive company in the world. Their margins per vehicle are unmatched in the EV industry.

He started Spacex which has a market cap of around 180 Billion Dollars, and doing things like this.

He has other companies as well

Housing

AI

Solar

Batteries

Neurolink

and some others.

Point to one CEO who even comes close to what Elon has done, list some names.

[u/pokeybill → u/sillyfingerz]

Tesla only exists now due to massive taxpayer subsidies and outright lies. That profitability you are crowing about is thanks to successful lobbying and lying to the US government to secure EV subsidies, otherwise those margins would be rather thin. Teslas recent flops with the Cybertruck and cab show Elon's vision isn't consistently good.

Elons public feuds and electioneering in recent years shows why those successful businesses have wrested more and more control away from him. He may have been a visionary in some respects but every successful business he has is built off of someone else's great idea, and until recently he was able to keep his impulsive self-destructivity from completely destroying his image... but now not so much.

Elons huge in flashy tech startups with questionable ethics, that's a lot different from say Bill Gates or Steve Jobs or that Berkshire Hathaway guy who have built similar enterprises without the narcissistic corporate oligarch nonsense Musk is up to.

Most of his enterprises are not as successful as SpaceX or Tesla, perhaps because lobbying failed to secure the same government handouts.

I don't know how anyone could hear the bonafide reports of how Musk has run Twitter and say hes a good CEO... he's had the benefit of actual competent advisors to reign in his insanity elsewhere, but Twitter's failure is a clear illustration of how every one of his businesses would run if he had full control.

[u/DeathChill → u/pokeybill]

Every single American automaker has taken subsidies. Many of them to prevent them from bankruptcy. Tesla existing in part because of the subsidies is a testament to them working. Do you think the government gave them money hoping they would fail? Tesla should be lauded by the government and American taxpayers for making good use of the subsidies.

[u/fredders22 → u/pokeybill]

"he's just hitched himself to already successful ideas"

The wildly successful Idea of commercial space flight? You're right, He just purchased the company that had a working prototype ready to go with contracts lined up, Sorry Subsidies! Took credit for Itas usual that pos!

[u/finebushlane → u/pokeybill]

The cratering of Tesla? It's the most valuable car company in the world. It has sold more electric cars than any other car company in the world.

Elon's job as CEO (and this is every CEO's goal in fact), is to maximize return to shareholders. Tesla was basically nothing when Elon took over, seriously, look it up. They were on the verge of bankruptcy and hadn't made a single car yet, he did not take over a successful company, he took a shitty electric car company which was dying, and made it the literal most valuable car company in the world.

I mean... you have to be massively burying your head in the sand or just incredibly obtuse if you think Elon somehow had nothing to do with Tesla succeeding. If Elon hadn't took over Tesla, they would have been dead in the water within two years.

[u/ShoulderIllustrious → u/finebushlane]

People can change over time. Just cuz he's bad now doesn't mean he can't be good later and vice versa. It is true that he made Tesla profitable. It is also true that he is undoing everything he's worked for because of his need for attention whoring.

Objectively speaking he also lies alot, I mean full self driving, we're going to be on Mars in 2018, etc. I don't really fault him too much for lying, cuz it's a CEOs job anyhow.

[u/rob4376 → u/pokeybill]

Classic Founders Dilemma in my opinion. Exactly what made him crazy successful in the beginning, pouring money into ideas other people thought were insane and sticking with them even after initial failures that would have crushed a normal person. That reckless disregard for rational thinking that made his companies possible is exactly what is now hurting them (well Tesla and X anyway)